So we are most certainly in a Jackfruit glut, they are everywhere. I wandered up to our roof space this evening to find my landlady, Sushila, and youngest daughter Rinky, tackling the dissection of one. What they really needed was a machete or at least a bigger knife than the one they had , but good kitchen knives are not easily found here - I was warned in advance to buy one in Delhi at European prices and am so glad I did. All you get here are small 4 inch blades, with a high propensity to bend and break, very flimsy. Anyway back to said Jackfruit. Gosh what a lot of work! First they cut it in half, then into quarters, taking care not to touch the inside of the skin, the pithy parts which are full of a gum and as Ken comment on my first Jackfruit post it smells and sticks to you. Fortunately for me I couldn't smell it, my sense of smell has gone again (the pollutants in the air do this - nothing a few days in the fresh air of Koraput next weekend won't cure).So having quartered the Jackfruit, they then have to dissect out the component parts, taking care to remove all the pith, to leave only the fleshy edible parts. It took so long the sun had gone down by the time the first edible bit was ready!
I am told there are two types of Jackfruit. They are called khoja and kaduå in Oriya. The one I had yesterday being a kaduå . Seemingly you can tell the difference by the degree of separation of the armadillo scales - further apart on a khoja. So in my opinion, if you are buying a Jackfruit that's the one to get!
This one tasted much nicer than yesterdays! I polished of several sections this evening. Yum. This one was drier, more solid, less bulky flesh, but the taste was much more pleasant. None of that taste note I didn't like.
We saved the seeds and Sushila will make a curry of these and let me taste it later this weekend. Assuming that happens, I'll report back on that tasting.
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